


Martyr Unwilling

by loserless



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Original Character(s), Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-09 22:31:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5558003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loserless/pseuds/loserless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No good deed goes unpunished. [Rating subject to change.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cleanser

_This chapter contains no spoilers for the Force Awakens. TW: Suicide mention._

* * *

Chunks of metal clinked against each other as an eager hand searched amongst their midst for anything that looked of value. The dusty interior of the sinking hut was littered with so many trinkets and belongings that it would take another twenty people to go through all of it before nightfall. There was neither the time nor the men to accomplish that, however, so one anxious individual was sanctioned per household to empty out the valuables to the best of their abilities.

A shrimpy, disenchanted woman that was searching the aforementioned hut whistled a jolly tune, stuffing shiny objects into a burlap sack with the vigor of a toddler and the carelessness of a corpse. Distantly, she could hear the hushed, though excited, voices of younger ones, exuberant to be partaking in their first pillage. This was far from the female's first raid, though she'd been sanctioned to corral the young ones when it was time to run like mad. It wasn't a responsibility that she begrudged, however, and thusly the woman was content to stroll about the township and get her greedy hands on anything that called her name.

As the woman was finishing her sweep of the home, a shrill tone broke the comfortable atmosphere that she'd easily grown accustomed to. Flinching inwardly at the noise, she turned towards the door, her gaze meeting the small stature of a boy about nine years old. Her initial negative reaction to the interruption was quickly broken apart by the jovial nature she'd been gifted with, and a crooked smile cracked across her face. She spoke low, her own voice croaky and rolling like the rivers on Belkadan, as she asked, "What was that, kiddo?"

The toothy young male scowled at the endearment she'd tagged him with, clearly disgruntled at having been referred to as anything but a full-grown male. "Don't call me kiddo, Gin, I'm old now - I'm allowed on raids!" He asserted, his small bag of newly-obtained belongings swishing with the intensity that he spoke with.

Gin rolled her eyes, sighing heavily at his energy. It was an absolute marvel that the general population wasn't trying to siphon the enthusiasm out of the younglings - they were practically a renewable resource at this point, given that they've had enough glucose. "If _you're_ old - I must be the most ancient person you've ever met!" She challenged, tying off the sack of stolen items she herself had collected before meandering out of the hut with the boy in tow.

"You _are_ the most ancient person I've ever met," He snorted, angling himself away from Gin to show his disgust.

She ignored his retort, knowing full well that there were countless numbers of people older than her that the both of them were more than well-acquainted with. The young woman also knew that silence was much more bothersome to children that insults and threats were. The boy was quietly boiling at the unspoken battle between them.

The pair's feet crunched against the damp leaves beneath them, the soil seeming to give way with every step. It had been a very rainy on this planet as of recent, if the mud was any indication of that, and the already uncoordinated younger male was having trouble keeping his footing. Gin would grab a hold of his jacket whenever he seemed close to falling, which was often. After several instances of this, the boy grabbed a hold of _her_ jacket, deciding that it was easier for the both of them if he simply complied. The woman snickered at his sullen expression as they traipsed around the village together.

"What have you found so far, Nate?" She inquired, haphazardly shoving bushels of fruit into an extra sack she'd brought with her in case she found anything she'd like to keep - and of course, food was her main priority in any given situation. It wasn't that they were starving, however. Gin just liked to eat. It was less of a need and more of a hobby for her, and she'd likely do enough pillaging in a day to make up for whatever weight she'd otherwise gain. That didn't mean she lacked any real body fat - it just meant she wasn't six-hundred pounds. The young woman began munching with gusto on foreign fruit that she didn't have the patience to examine before consuming.

Nathan, mimicking his elder, and much more aloof, conversation partner, grabbed a smooth-looking vegetable from a different food stand and chewed idly on it between the words of his next reply, "I don't know, but it all looks really cool!" The vegetable being forgotten as soon as it was found, he started yanking objects out of his pack to show to Gin, a look of pride on his face.

The woman listened amicably to his rather boring tales of his first raid, and looked with feigned interest on the items he proffered to her, but was inwardly aching to return to their ship and take a well-deserved nap for the next several hours.

"- And I found this blaster! I don't know if it works, but it's awesome!" Nate pulled a decent-sized, black-colored blaster out of nowhere, pointing it excitedly in every direction he could possibly manage.

Gin choked at the sight of the gun, quickly snatching it from the boy's inexperienced and potentially volatile fingers. She scanned the weapon with a frantic gaze, her forehead wrinkling with concern as the young boy shrieked at his new find being stolen from him. The protests of her juvenile friend were completely blocked out as an unconsolable stream of anxious thoughts spewed from the crevices of her head.

Eyes wide and mouth dry, she grasped Nate's shoulders firmly, looking him directly in the eyes. "Where the _hell_ did you find this, Nathan?" She asked, her voice becoming a hiss with the tension in her jaw.

His superior's sudden seriousness frightened the boy a little, and he shrunk backwards, not wanting to meet her gaze. He didn't answer.

" _Nathan_ , it's not your fault. You aren't in trouble - _but_ ," Gin stopped, showing the male the gun that he'd obtained, "This blaster is _not_ old. It is _not_ broken, and it does _not_ belong to _anyone_ that lives on this planet." She perspired against her own worry, her fingers beginning to tremble.

This was meant to be a simple little raid - something for the younger generation to take on that would earn them some experience and make them feel more capable. The inhabitants of the village weren't even _around_. They'd all taken a trip to a distant shrine for the annual worship of whatever deity they subscribed to. The calculating gaggle of thieves had made _sure_ of that, and had searched the area beforehand to be absolutely sure of the children's safety. This blaster was not from this planet, and was recently used, if the smell of smoke from the barrel was any evidence to that fact.

Just when she thought he would never speak up, Nate pointed off into the distance where he'd originally came from, and Gin grabbed his hand tightly as they made their way to the blaster's point of origin.

They wouldn't get very far before realizing that it was a little late to be investigating the strange occurrences around the thickly wooded area.

A nearby explosion caused the pair to be knocked to the side, Gin instinctively wrapping herself around her young friend to protect him from harm. The back of her skull connected with the tabletop of a nearby trading post, effectively knocking her out for the next several moments. Nathan's hysterical screaming was the thing that brought her back to consciousness, like a strange, personal blend of smelling salts that awakened in her a need to protect and serve those who needed her most. She ground her teeth at the pain her maternal instincts were giving her, her legs swaying beneath her body and her head swimming as she tried to stand and take stock of the situation.

Her eyes focused on the boy's face first, her clammy hands cupping his cheeks as she tried to stabilize herself. His eyes were wide, urgent, terrified. She noticed his lip was split and his temples appeared to be bleeding. Upon further investigation, it was her palms that had were bleeding - skinned and torn from the impact of fall. Upon _further_ investigation, Gin realized that Nathan was screaming words at her that sounded like nothing but sirens in her concussed eardrums.

The blaster he'd found was clutched in his hands. He pressed it to her chest with desperate need - a desperate need for her to be the hero that he so desired. She was no such hero, however, and ignored his frantic attempts to communicate with her, dragging him hastily along the sidelines of the attack, simply sticking the now-damaged gun into her jacket pocket.

The horrifically familiar sight of a white bucket helmet was what jarred her back into functionality, stopping her feet from moving forward. Her hazy vision cleared, and the adrenaline pushed past the ringing in her ears. The woman swallowed the bile that had begun to build in her throat, turning to her young friend with a look of determination, of necessitation. There were children in this village. Her children - regardless of the lack of biological affiliation. She was going to get every last one of them home.

"Stay calm, Nate," Gin ordered, clasping his hand firmly. She gazed deep into his troubled expression, trying her best not to burst into hysterics. This was never what she wanted for herself, for the people around her. "You're my second in command now. I need you to help me get the rest of the kids to safety. Can you do that?" Screams echoed all around her. She couldn't be wasting time trying to keep Nathan from a panic attack, but he'd only endanger himself and his friends if he didn't keep himself marginally centered.

The boy, clearly not understanding the real danger in the situation, just nodded frantically at her command, and took a deep breath inwards.

Gin answered the first cry for help that reached her, diving into a crumbling hut to pull a panicking child from under a dinner table. Nate grasped the hand of the other child, taking his superior's order straight to heart. They ran across the village, avoiding the sights of their attackers to the best of their abilities. Three other adults among the thieves gathered what children they could find as well, bringing them to a cavity deep in the forest where they awaited rescue.

A quick head count revealed that they had only retrieved seventeen of the thirty-two children who had been brought to the village to take part in their first raid. The four adults looked at eachother with grave expressions on their faces - eyes hollow, lips flat. They'd seen the carnage. They'd seen the explosions, the laser-fire, the blood. Gin herself had found several dead bodies, missing limbs, _heads_ \- things that she could barely hide from the children that were still intact. The emotions within her were so intense that she even couldn't register anything but the shaking in her hands. She couldn't register details. She couldn't register sounds, sights, situations.

The only thing she knew was that her charges - her children - had been killed. Some of her peers were killed, some of her favorite people were killed, some of her loved ones. Some were still in the process of dying, too - and if she didn't go back in, they'd die with everyone else.

"The rescue ship is on its way. You all stay here," Gin spouted, her head so full of pain and confusion that she couldn't even find her own common sense, "I'm going back in."

Immediately, another woman just breaths younger than her cut in, "You absolutely _cannot_ go in there. You will _not_ come back out." This assertive female spoke firmly, astutely - _prophetically_. There was really no arguing with her, that is, unless you were Ginovae.

Gin's voice trembled with rage, with fear as she hissed out her next words, "If I don't go back in there, _no one else will come out._ " She didn't wait to hear more protests, more opinions, more orders. The faces of subordinates - of friends - flashed through her head, some living, some dead. Fifteen lost children. Fifteen lost children. Fifteen lost children. Fifteen.

As she stumbled back into the chaos, her eyes boiled over with tears. Gin had returned just in time to watch six kids - barely ten years old - get pushed to their knees and ruthlessly shot from behind. She puked onto the dirt below as she searched for anyone, _anyone_ left to save. Bile dribbled down her chin, mixing with tears and saliva that seemed to be continually leaking from her extremities.

She would only find one more child. Just _one._ A young girl stuck knee-deep in a thick layer of unrelenting, sticky mud. The elder female wasted no time in going to her side, trying in vain to tug her from the ground. Muffled, electronic-sounding voices grew closer and closer to the pair.

"Please, please, _please_ save me," The girl whimpered hysterically, trying to keep her voice as low as possible. Sobs wracked silently through her small body as her struggles only got her more encased in the muck. Gin pulled and pulled on the girl's torso, on her arms, her own hysteria growing with every second.

It was like she was the only one there - the young girl completely ignored, despite being the sole focus of the situation at hand. Only Ginovae's own thoughts were heard, were valued. She cursed to herself repeatedly, wildly, losing whatever semblance of sanity she had left to spare. There was simply no leverage in trying to save the girl from the dry, stable ground that she herself was standing on.

Footsteps crept closer to the two, and Gin's urgency increased ten-fold. She stepped directly into the mud pit, using her last bout of adrenaline, of energy, to drag the child from the murky depths. Joints creaked beneath the skin with the effort used to save her, the woman's muscles screaming in protest. The legs of the larger female sank in the process, the youngling only adding to the weight on her own end. Soon she herself was thigh-deep in mud, and shiny white suits could be seen just yards away from them, hidden only slightly by the densely-packed trees.

" _Get the hell out of here,_ " Gin whispered forcefully to the girl, her voice seeming too loud for the tone she was really trying to use. Her voice broke at the end of her sentence, more tears welling up in her eye sockets. They boiled deep beneath her skin, up her cheeks and into her sinuses. The young girl choked back another sob as she took one last, mournful look at her superior and dove into the forest, where she hoped to find safety.

And the young woman was alone again, this time for good. At least, that's what she felt inside. However, a large group of stormtroopers had advanced upon her location from behind, and she could only anticipate their actions. She held her hands at her side, just slightly elevated with the tension in her arms. Gin waited for death. She waited for it with a deranged sort-of peace, her eyelids shut softly and her prayers said silently.

The static mumbles of transmitters could be heard from the helmets of the monsters that lay South of her, a conversation occurring that she couldn't quite make out, as if she was even trying. She did, however, hear the outcome.

"We are taking the woman into custody," One of the stormtroopers announced, relaying the orders he'd been given from his commander. Two of the masked individuals flanked Gin from the sides, moving to pull her from the ground and take her to God-knows-where.

In a last-ditch effort to _survive_ , however, Gin shouted with urgency, " _Wait!_ "

And in their shock, the murderous soldiers stopped in their tracks, all waiting to see what had caused the insipid woman to think that she could tell them what to do. Slowly, steadily, she pulled the stolen blaster from her jacket pocket, eliciting violence from the troopers. They trained their guns on her, not afraid of her tiny weapon in comparison to their more powerful, ranged blasters.

"Where did you get that, woman? That blaster is issued only the First Order," One of the soldiers questioned, his metallic voice severe with an over-inflated sense of duty to an organization that meant nothing good to the world. At least, that's what Gin believed.

She did not reply to the question, eliciting further threats from the enemies, as she slowed raised the blaster further and further upwards. Her tongue flicked anxiously over her chapped lips as she held an internal debate with herself, an existential struggle - her final decision.

And without any further deliberation, she pressed the blaster to her temple, and pulled the trigger.

The gun would not fire, and Gin would not die in that mud pit, much to her horror. She screeched and fought all the way to the enemies' ships, her protests and wild, unrelenting grief being completely ignored by the figures around her. She would scream on the way into the ship, she would scream down the length of the sinister carrier, and would continue to scream when she was locked in a holding cell, until they held her down, and quietly sedated her.

Gin would remember few details of what happened that day, and remains content that she never recall the faces of her dead and dying children.

* * *

" _You swear to build, we swear to come and burn it down, burn it down."_ \- Brand New

* * *

_Please leave a review if you enjoyed the story. I'm looking forward to writing this one. - Marina_


	2. Hindsight

_This chapter contains little to no spoilers for the Force Awakens. TW: Suicide mention._

* * *

Three more times did Gin try to find a way out of capture - and none of the three were for escape. She didn't have the resources, the allies, the stability, or the manipulative abilities to try to return to the life she'd been leading only hours before. Unless the fates simply bent to her will for reasons unexplained, the poor woman was trapped for an indefinite amount of time until she was likely executed.

Long hours were spent in heavy deliberation, trying to make a decision that she'd already made once before. She was never one to take an action that would paint her with false cowardice, but it seemed to be the only plausible option in her situation. It wasn't so much as an instinct, but a learned behavior. She had always been taught - regardless of the generally positive atmosphere she'd grown up in - that death by one's own hands was better than death by another's. Over the next several days, Ginovae tried to finish what she'd started back when she was stuck in that mud pit.

Committing inconspicuous suicide was something impossible, she was beginning to learn, especially being that there were cameras built into her depressingly tiny prison cell. She was itching with near-constant fear, more of her enemies than of herself. They would torture her, watch her bleed. They would enjoy it. She wanted to take that away from them as quickly as possible. Gin wanted to die on her own terms.

The first attempt was less of an _attempt_ and more of a future investment. She stopped eating. Unfriendly soldiers would drop a tray of unappetizing food off for her, and she would send it back untouched. When threatened with force, only two days after beginning her fast, Gin tried to hide the food or make it appear that she had eaten some. They were not fooled. She was force fed twice daily as a consequence.

The second attempt was quite erratic, and occurred shortly after having a plastic tube shoved down her throat for several minutes straight as an unhappy-looking man squoze blended concoctions into her stomach while two _other_ unhappy men held her down. She'd wrenched the fragile bed-frame apart, content to see the uncomfortable metal sheet in shambles as she attempted to fashion a blade out of the parts. The privileges to her cot were quickly revoked, and she was made to sleep on the icy steel flooring.

The third attempt was easily intercepted, as the guards had been keeping a much closer eye on her behavior. She'd been heavily sedated once again after attempted to strangle herself with her own clothes. News of her unrelenting need for the worst sort-of escape spread quickly among the soldiers aboard the carrier ship, and with such infamy came the scrutiny of higher-ups. As it turned out, she'd only made her situation worse.

The thick metal door behind her swung wide open, two stormtroopers entering to remove her from confinement. What they found, however, was as exasperating as it was unusual. She was not moving, she was not struggling, and she wasn't screaming wildly as the only control she had was ripped away from her - control of her life. Gin was lying complacently on the ground, her stomach cold from the metal paneling beneath it. The woman's neck was cocked uncomfortably to the side, her mouth hanging ajar. For a minute, the soldiers were concerned that she really _had_ killed herself.

"Stand up, prisoner," One of the two commanded, stepping forward to rouse her from her semi-conscious state, "We're moving you."

She didn't move. She didn't respond. She did, much to their relief, blink weakly at the wall in front of her.

The other one spoke up, his voice more forceful than the one before, "Are you deaf? We told you to get up. Don't make this any harder than it has to be."

The tense silence that followed was broken quite alarmingly by a gurgle rising from the woman's chest. They reached forward to check on their recent captive, both assuming that she was choking, but were stopped by the sound's escalation.

Gin was giggling. Quite uncontrollably.

And she layed there, chortling grossly for several moments, earning only confusion from the two soldiers. Her giggles ascended in pitch, in range, in decibel. The shrieks of laughter alerted the outside guards, who quickly responded. Several stormtroopers stopped in their rounds to see what the psychopathic prisoner was getting up to now.

But the strange events aboard the carrier ended with a disappointing, anticlimactic snort. Gin's lips widened into a lopsided grin, and she angled her neck to get a better look at the armed men in the room. "... I can't move," She slurred, her words slopping and spilling from her mouth like the currents of a polluted creek.

The men grabbed a hold of her arms, feeling the unresponsiveness in her limbs. She started cackling again, evidently at the strange sensation in her muscles, and the soldiers hoisted her up themselves, dragging her out of the cell and back down the vaguely familiar hallways of the ship. Her head lolled uselessly to the side, her neck unable to support the weight of her cranium.

Somewhere, a medic made note to administer less sedative to his patients - willing or otherwise.

Gin, being hardly present for the trip out of her cell, remembered absolutely nothing of the voyage onto what appeared to be another ship, perhaps a larger one. She could not tell. They left her in a mostly empty room, save for a sinister-looking chair that she promptly passed out in after being strapped down - with much difficulty, being that she was one-hundred and twenty-five pounds of dead weight at this point.

She awoke quite abruptly, searing pain wracking through her occipital bone. Her eyes opened wide, retinas for once singing the praises of the dim lights that she'd been forced to deal with for the past - what was it? A week? Gin simply couldn't tell anymore. Spatial reality set in at an alarming rate, and she realized that she wasn't alone in the room.

Her jaw tensed with anticipation, but she did not dare move - partly because she was afraid that she couldn't, and partly because she was afraid of what she'd find if she tried to look around the slightly more roomy prison cell. It wasn't as if the strange collar of the chair she'd been strapped to was good for peripheral vision anyways. She swallowed thickly, her fists clenched. It wasn't hard to notice the figure she was sharing the room with. They weren't exactly trying to hide from her - being that they stood, in essence, directly in her line of sight.

Ginovae would not acknowledge them. She wouldn't have to, and she knew that. They'd make their presence known as they saw fit. The only thing she had control of was herself. The only thing she had control of was herself. The only thing she had control of was herself.

She didn't even have that, as it turned out.

"I was informed that you have attempted suicide several times since your capture," An icy, metallic voice stated, effectively breaking through the misty mental haze that the woman had begun to create between herself and the situation she was being forced into. The opposing figure paused, waiting for a reaction from Gin, which she was too apprehensive to give.

Evidently they didn't mind waiting another several moments for her to respond, which resulted in her giving only a stiff, hesitant nod. She stared with petrification at the wall just to the right of her new conversation partner, hoping that if she didn't look in their exact direction, they simply would cease to exist. By the imposing stature that they stood at, and the dark garb they were dressed in - this was someone who meant business, and not the good kind.

The heavy sound of a deep, slow inhale came from the stranger before he spoke again, "That is… Pathetic. Cowardly."

Ginovae wasn't sure if she valued this person's opinions at all, but the words stung nonetheless. The fruitless struggle that she suffered through in that blasted cell _had_ been pathetic, it _had_ been cowardly. Hadn't it? It was even more pathetic that she hadn't succeeded in the _one thing_ that would've saved her from all this pain. She did not comment on the individual's scathing insults. Anything she said would be her own way of consoling herself in the long-run.

The shrouded figure stalked closer to her, making her muscles tense to the point of cramping. Gin was sure that it would take a crowbar to pry her closed fists open again. She sweated anxiously, still making an effort to look _anywhere else_ but the person in front of her, whom she was beginning to assume was a man. Women of wide-shoulders and narrow hips were few and far between, though not completely elusive. The seemingly deep - though somewhat robotic - voice that came from their… _Helmet_ was pointedly male, however.

Thoughts of gender identification filled her head as she grasped for distractions. There was a high likelihood that she would be slaughtered in this room with little regard to her screams, and she was hoping to be mentally clocked out when that happened.

On the other hand, the short-fused male was already growing tired of this foolish woman's skittish mannerisms. She had the look of an animal stuck in a tractor beam, and the dignity of a disgraced veteran. It was obnoxious, it was pitiful, it was frustrating. He grew closer to her side, his hand reaching out to clasp the girl's jaw in his hands that dwarfed her face in proportion. Her expression did not change as he turned her to look at him, and he got the feeling that she still wasn't paying attention. His grip tightened on her cheeks, and he could feel her teeth grinding against each other in silent protest.

Gin's metacarpal muscles began to spasm and twitch with the force she was using to keep herself still, and water welled up in her eyes as she felt her tissues shift beneath the man's fingers. If she wasn't present before, she definitely was now.

Now that he had her attention, however, he did not want it anymore. While he was vaguely - _vaguely_ \- impressed by her ability to keep herself from reacting beyond mere twitches, the woman was proving to be incredibly boring. He released her face from his hand, and she held eye contact with him for only a few more breaths before turning her petrified face back to the wall she'd been previously staring at. His exhales grew ragged with exasperation at her noncompliance. It would be so simple to infiltrate that fragile mind of hers - but the satisfaction would be almost entirely absent from him.

"... You are of no use to me like this," The man announced flippantly, very nearly stomping his way around the intricate chair, and coming even closer to knocking the heads of the stationed guards together.

The room fell into silence again, and stayed that way for several more hours.

Gin was beginning to feel her blood sugar dropping dramatically, and the walls around her were beginning to swim with the unsteadiness in her sinuses. She was almost positive that her previous collide with the table had given her a severe concussion, but she was unlikely to receive any real medical attention here - aside from sedation, that is.

Furthermore, she was an incredibly social creature, born into a family - biological and otherwise - that seemed to be larger than the galaxy itself. She was never alone. Never alone. Never alone. Until now, that is. And it was wrenching apart whatever shreds of sanity and patience she had left, if there was any left at all.

In her desperation, she angled her head towards the stormtrooper standing just behind her, barely able to catch a glimpse of the shiny buckethead that all of the Republic's soldiers sported. It was almost comforting to see something familiar, something she knew she'd bested in the past. Her lips parted, searching for words to say - words that wouldn't get her in more trouble than she was already in.

After sweating over her introductory sentence for several minutes, Gin finally spoke, her voice even more scraggly and dusty than usual, "... So, uh… Who was that guy?"

The stormtrooper looked stunned - if a masked individual _could_ looked stunned - both at her idiocy and at the fact that she'd asked anything at all. They decided to humor the captive woman, at least for a moment. She probably wouldn't be long for this world anyways. "The man who spoke to you? His name is Kylo Ren," The soldier replied stoically, not removing his own gaze from the position on the wall that he himself had chosen to focus on, "It would be wise not to test his patience if he so chooses to speak to you again."

Ginovae almost entirely ignored the last part of his answer, already knowing that she was pressing her luck with the imposing figure. "What did you say the name was?" She asked again, her jarred head having trouble recognizing sounds in the first place, let alone without masks covering the mouths of those she was trying to communicate with.

The stormtrooper repeated themselves with the same amount of steel as before, showcasing his proper training, "Kylo Ren."

She swallowed thickly, still not having heard the enemy soldier. "One more time?"

"Kylo. Ren."

"Kyro Len?"

" _Kyro. Len-,_ " They cut themselves off, realizing that they'd simply repeated the women's mistake with embarrassing tenacity, "His name is Kylo Ren. You may call him Kyro Len if you wish for your lifespan to be shortened considerably."

Gin just nodded, not wanting to aggravate the guard any further. She made a mental note of his tip, however. A quick death was better than the slow, inevitable one she was currently enduring.

There was nothing that caused as much despondency in a person than looking down the tunnel and finding no light there.

* * *

_"And all that's left is a blind reflection. You see what's coming, and you regret it."_ \- The Milk Carton Kids


	3. Bargains

_This chapter contains no spoilers for the Force Awakens. TW: Suicide mention._

* * *

Ginovae encountered the man called Kylo Ren several times following their initial meeting, and no amount of threatening, scare tactics, or physical violence would get her to speak to him. She couldn't tell if she was immobilized with fear, acting with defiance, or just being a plain idiot at this point. Several times would he enter the room in a swirl of sour, headstrong determination. Several times would he sit and wait for her to speak to him - to scream at him, to beg for mercy, to sob needlessly - anything. Several times would she stare hopelessly at the wall before her, hardly casting him a glance as if it was to make him spare her life. And several times would he leave, his anger increasing at an exponential level every time he did so.

Only _one_ time, however, would he give Gin an ultimatum. After days of holding himself back for the sake of having something new to fixate on, Kylo would tire of the tedium, of the one-sided interrogations, of the woman's lifeless, stony face pointedly looking anywhere else in the room _but at him._ He hated to be avoided, to be ignored, to be made an exception. The disgruntled force-user had gotten word, at one point, that she spoke at length to her guards whenever he was not around. Needless to say, he'd put a stop to her shenanigans as soon as he'd heard the news from the gossipy people around the base.

She seemed even more avoidant of him after the stormtroopers ceased talking with her between his visits. It was fascinating, however, to watch her cheeks hollow out as the days dragged on. He'd never seen someone give up so fast, so completely. As much as he found her attitude deplorable, it interested him to know what her thought process was. Resistance members did not act as she did, traitors among the First Order did not act as she did - even other space pirates showed no resemblance to her.

Enough was enough. She was going to speak with him if she liked it or not. Picking her brain was a last resort - being the option with the most boring outcome.

He'd taken her face in his hand once again, being that it was the only real way to steal her attention. Not having any choice in the matter, Gin stared reluctantly at bottom portion of his mask, her breaths shallow and slow like those of a toddler trying to keep quiet during a game of hide-and-seek.

"This is your _last chance to cooperate_ ," Kylo announced, alerting her of the grave mistake she was making by continuing in her noncompliance, "The next time I will not be so hospitable."

Ginovae almost choked at the irony in his words. Was _this_ really what he counted as being _hospitable_? Did he strap all of his guests down to chairs and _dare_ them to deny him his wishes? It took an extreme amount of self-control not to roll her eyes at his threat, though she couldn't quite stop her gaze from flitting left to right momentarily. She grit her teeth and settled back into the stoicism that she'd so carefully crafted up to this point.

While the flames of rage brimmed at the woman's opposition, Kylo couldn't help but feel a swell of pride that he'd managed to elicit any response from the woman at all. He should've known better than to doubt himself, especially against a pathetic individual of no real stature or importance. The volatile man released her face abruptly, taking a slow, purposeful step backwards. For once, she kept facial contact with him, still hardly looking him in the eyes. He held his closed fists at his sides, his voice monotonous, "Will you speak?"

Gin's hands twitched at the man's sudden assertion of power. She'd gotten used to the invasion of personal space, she'd gotten used to his hostile words and actions, to his unrelenting, hidden gaze. This change in pace took her by surprise, and she couldn't help but act with complacence, even just for a moment. The bedraggled female thought of the past days spent aching in a restraining chair, spent being shoved around in the hallways as she was permitted to take her routine piss-breaks. She was stuck as a prisoner for reasons not ascertained to her. It was endlessly aggravating. Her bones creaked with the overwhelming desire to give in to the will of the First Order - she owed it to herself for being so strong for all this time.

She flexed her fingers absently, her lips parting for a fleeting moment. It would be over so quickly. They would take whatever information they needed from her and she would meet the sweet embrace of death without all the fuss. Ginovae looked Kylo up and down with a slow, absent motion. She started at his feet, dragging her eyes up the length of his body until she was back where she began, but this time she stared deep into the colorless sockets in his helmet, doing her best to make actual eye-contact with the man she'd spent days silently antagonizing.

He was an arrogant, tyrannous murderer. As much as she wanted to give in, she would be betraying everything she'd ever stood for.

With a long, stiff shake of the head, Gin turned down his ultimatum, and slowly looked back at the wall that had become like an old friend during her imprisonment.

And Kylo Ren wasn't sure he'd ever been as furious as he was at that moment. She'd let him truly believe, just for a moment, that he'd beaten her. It had taken much longer than necessary, but he'd _beaten_ her. For a few tiny increments of time, he was elated to have taken care of something without using brute force or literal _force_. And as soon as the ego, the satisfaction, was building within him, this horrible woman snatched it away.

He hated her for making him question himself so.

Gin did her best not to flinch as Kylo took great strides towards her, his elbow cocked in a way that made her think he was going to hit her. Before she could register what was happening, his right fist hooked towards her jaw, and her eyes snapped shut instinctively. Just before he made connection, however, he opened his fist and pulled his punch, ending with his gloved hand splayed across her cheek.

She couldn't contain the visible fear anymore, her entire body quivering and her petrified, shallow breaths returning from where she'd hoped to encase them. There was a definite rage radiating from beneath his clothes, from beneath his skin. The woman was surprised the anger didn't melt through him like the lava on Mustafar. It was palpable, it was vibrant, it was terrifying. His thumb roughly stroked against the skin of her lower eyelid, pulling at the tissues so hard she worried they'd stick that way. His fingers tugged idly on her face, as if contemplating whether or not to rip her tired features clean off. She tried her best not to move or struggle against his touch, praying to all collective deities that he wouldn't _really_ tear her flesh from her body.

His heavy, harsh breathing shook from his lungs with every great heave of his chest. Kylo sounded seconds away from having the most violent conniption he'd ever experienced - and that was saying something. She was not important, she was not relevant, she was not powerful. He could _snap_ every bone in her body with the _snap_ of his fingers. So why did he relent? Why didn't he knock her jaw out of place like he was aiming to do just moments ago?

Because he was going to prove to himself, to everyone, that he could exhibit self-control.

He took his hand from her cheek after giving her face another painful squeeze, and he relished momentarily in the shivering exhale that came from her small frame. The darkly-garbed man waited for her to catch her breath, his arms crossed tersely against his chest. "If you will not comply," Kylo started, moving his way around the restraining chair and towards the exit door, "Then I will be seeing you later under much different circumstances."

Before leaving the room, he cast a look behind him, though she could not tell from where she was positioned. "You will live to regret that."

And she would.

The stormtroopers released her from the chair shortly after Kylo left, leaving her to crumple uselessly against the cold flooring. They guarded her while she folded in on herself, whispering frantically against her kneecaps like a mother would to comfort her child after they awoke from a nightmare. She wished she had someone like that to comfort her, but the only thing she had to break apart the silence was the static breathing of enemy soldiers.

Two days later, Gin was dragged from the interrogation room by a duo of men, forced to walk down endless hallways till her weary legs nearly caved beneath her body. She could feel the energy seeping out from beneath her toenails with every waking moment. They treated her like an animal, throwing her miniscule portions whenever they had the time to spare. Her bones felt more prominent, though she wasn't sure if she qualified as malnourished as of yet.

She noticed her reflection in the passing panes of glass, and failed to recognize the person staring back. This place was making her into a skeleton of what she used to be. Gin swallowed gravely at her own expense, returning her gaze forward so as not to be disturbed any further.

After what felt like an eternity, they arrived to an empty, brightly-lit, square room that they promptly locked her in without so much as a pat on the back for moral support. She ground her teeth - which she'd been doing a lot recently - at her enemies' callous, though unsurprising, behavior, and leaned against a nearby wall.

And she waited.

And she waited.

And she waited.

She waited so long that her already shaky limbs could no longer support her, and she plopped down to the ground, sitting with her legs crossed. She waited so long that she began picking at the scabs on her wrist where the restraints had been rubbing. She waited _so long_ that guards _actually_ came to drop off food for her, as well a box of useless nuts and bolts that they commanded her to organize while she waited.

She waited _**so long**_ that she'd asked for _more_ things to sort, and then took a brief nap after completing all those meaningless chores. The buzzing of a dying lightbulb overhead made her skull begin to ache. Gin cradled her head in her hands, her feet fidgeting beneath her as she struggled against a panic attack.

It didn't help that Kylo Ren decided to make his entry while she was near-convulsing on the ground, surrounded by several tins of hardware tools that looked too neat to be the property of any mechanic on their base.

"Stand up, woman," He ordered gruffly, his hands aching with the need to shake the weakness from her body, "You knew this was coming."

A strong, glowing red shone into her vision, explosions of color coming in waves despite her eyes being closed. Gin peeked from behind her lashes in time to catch the length of a crackling, crimson lightsaber finish it's unsheathing from its metal container. For the umpteenth time in what was probably _weeks_ , she wasn't sure if she'd ever be able to breathe right again. Her body told her to get as far away from him as possible, but she was at peace with this ending. Death by sword was so much more merciful than what she'd been expecting from this grievously hateful man. She glanced upwards at him from her place on the ground, but made no comment otherwise. Her eyes slid shut once again.

The heavy footsteps of Kylo echoed against the flooring, reverberating in her aching skull like the falling of rocks into a bat's ears. She tightened against her upcoming demise, but made no move to stop him. The steps grew closer to her, the incessant whirring of his weapon grew closer as well, and she could feel the air move around him as he raised the sword to strike. The woman drew in what she was sure would be her final breath, and with the proverbial falling of the axe, Gin rolled deftly out of the way.

Kylo was entirely unsurprised to see this. He turned his head towards his opponent, who rose unsteadily onto feet that seemed ready to beneath her weight. His long legs carried him the single step it took to reach her side again, and he took another lazy swing at the female, who made a second, over-exerting dodge in a frantic attempt to avoid his strikes. She edged slowly away from him like a frightened animal, carefully avoiding any corners that she could get trapped in. And he slowly advanced on her like a predator who knew their prey had nowhere to run.

As he moved, he mocked her pathetic excuse for a desire to live, finding it almost as cowardly as her previous desire to die. "You'd been begging for death before," Kylo began, turning his saber left and right as if taking in his craftsmanship for the first time. His head angled back towards her, and he stopped in his steps. "What changed?"

Gin fumbled lamely around for the right words to say - any words that would put off laceration by deadly fire-sword. She opened and closed her mouth several times, still slowly backing away from the hideous excuse for a human being. He seemed to take her silence as a furthered attempt at being uncooperative, for he took much more meaningful steps in her direction, very nearly closing the gap again. The frazzled young woman quickened her gait to match his strides.

" _Well_?"

Her words spilled out from her mouth with the force of a jet engine, "You're a damn fool if you really believed I wanted to die at the hands of the likes of _you_." She slapped her hands up to her mouth, wishing beyond wishes that she could reach down and pull out her own vocal chords.

Kylo stopped moving completely, shocked at the female's sudden tenacity. He'd expected groveling, he'd expected babbling - but _insults_? She really was as stupid as he'd originally thought. The masked man laughed despite himself, a strangely hearty, though short-lived chuckle, and it seemed to scare his prisoner more than anything he'd ever done before. The tall male put away his weapon, seeing that the intimidation was no longer needed. "Perhaps it was wise that you've stayed so silent until now," He jeered, "Had you said that to me yesterday, you would be in _pieces_."

It wasn't exactly a comforting thought, Gin reflected, but she took his laugh as a good sign rather than the opposite. Trying not to test the waters too roughly, she asked him a hesitant question, "Can I ask why you _haven't_ left me in pieces, then?"

His tone became more grave at the mention of his motives, partly due to the fact that he rarely let _anyone_ question his motives. He figured she'd be dead in time anyways, so he humored her. "I'm sure you know why, woman," Kylo started, watching her brow furrow with confusion, "You and your little gang of thieves have taken something that rightfully belongs to _me_."

Gin swallowed thickly, an unending film of stolen goods flashing through her head as she tried to make a guess at what he was talking about. "We steal many things," She acknowledged slowly, carefully, "Can I ask what we have stolen from you?"

The question seemed to cause his anger to broil once again, because his next words were forceful, venomous, " _You know what you stole from me._ "

She flinched at the weight in his accusation, beginning to back up towards the wall once again, if only to create more space between them. He mirrored her, reinventing the problem she was trying in vain to fix. Ginovae put up her hands defensively, tears of panic threatening to bubble up into her sinuses. She sweated anxiously as she spoke, becoming more and more nervous, and thus, more and more hasty, " _Look_ , I don't know what we stole from you - and I can't know unless you _tell me_. I can't _read your damn mind_!"

As if her words were prophetic in some way, the next seconds had her at the wall with a massive hand around her throat, clenching tightly around her trachea like her own clothes had just days beforehand. She struggled to breath, her feet dangling off the ground as he dragged her up to meet his masked gaze more directly. Gin clawed uselessly against his hold, her nails tearing against his bandage-covered arm.

His free hand rose towards her forehead, contorting in a way that seemed more lethal than the fact that she was being physically choked to death. As if the pain she was already feeling wasn't enough, a searing stroke of pure, ceaseless agony enclosed the tissues of her brain, as if someone were trying to force it to implode on itself. Tears leaked out of her eyes almost involuntarily as he manipulated the fabric of her mind, searching for the information he needed. She squeezed her eyes shut against the sensation, her screams being cut off by the fingers around her neck.

Kylo searched relentlessly through her memories, pulling images in and out of her head in a fruitless attempt to find what he was looking for. He saw family, he saw friends, he saw love and life and death, but he _didn't see what he needed._ The extreme disappointment was life-ruining, at least to the woman he was currently suffocating. Despite knowing that he would find nothing, he kept searching, the gasps for air not even registering to him.

Gin's eyes began to roll into the back of her head, and she made a last-ditch effort to save herself, using the leverage of his extended arm to swing her legs up, knocking him as hard as she could in the head. They collapsed simultaneously, the male recovering much quicker from the assault as he stumbled to his feet, hand clutched to his new bruise. She wretched pathetically against the wall, her dry heaving the only real sound in the room, save for the distant cluttering of Kylo's helmet onto the ground below.

The suffering young woman took a small, frightful glance at her enraged enemy, seeing the broken, hateful expression on his long, unmasked face. It was even more unnerving than the stony covering he so often wore, because she didn't have to _guess_ that he was angry - she could _see_ he was angry - and angry was an understatement.

His voice came out in a hiss as he said for the second time in three days, " _You will live to regret that, **Ginovae**._ "

And she would.

But in that moment, all she heard was _**live**_. And that was all that mattered.

* * *

 _"An army of golems is stalking, now, the heart's lands eating all reality. Producing only dust and sand, nothing ever hurts them, nothing gets under their stone skin. And when their earthen mouths will open up, just what words should come out, but, 'We wish we were dead.'"_ \- Have a Nice Life


	4. Allies

_This chapter contains little to no spoilers for the Force Awakens._

* * *

Ginovae was found several hours later in that same room, struggling to breathe from the fractures she'd obtained in her ribs. Kylo had a field day after she'd kicked him in the jaw, coming very close to actually killing the poor girl where she lay, defenseless, on the icy floor. Nobody dared go in to care for the wounded prisoner until they were given the explicit permission of the dangerous, hate-driven man who had put her in such a state. It took him quite a long while to calm down enough to decide that she was of even less use to him dead. She was sorely mistaken if she thought he was done with her. Killing that girl would be giving her what she wanted, ultimately - and if he couldn't have what _he_ wanted, neither could she.

The room was stained with blood and littered with the short, thick, wiry brown hairs that had been torn from her scalp. They carried her from the mess of bodily fluids to the infirmary on a stretcher, her captors using a gentleness that she hadn't yet experienced from them - probably because if they moved her too much, the cracked ribs would puncture her lungs. Her wounds were tended to by an old, bedraggled-looking nurse, and the guards returned to make sure she was properly strapped down to the hospital cot. The upside of being horribly injured was that the restraints were much, _much_ softer than the ones she'd been dealing with for so many days now. Gin's bruised flesh thanked every good power in the galaxy for that little blessing.

She couldn't tell if they were simply taking pity on her, or if cripples just got special treatment, but the enemy staff seemed to act with more care around her. It was a refreshing change of pace, but it made her feel even more pathetic to know that she was relying on them to survive.

The nurse who she'd been assigned to would return to her side every few hours to check that her breaks had set properly, and that the wounds had not become agitated. Gin tried not to make the old woman's job any harder than it needed to be, but her unrelenting need for human contact was becoming too much to bear. She watched with a distant sort-of interest as the medic applied new bandages and salve to the affected areas.

In a surprising change of pace, the elder woman parted her lips, looking at her charge as if she was going to speak to her. After a few moments of deliberation, she spoke. "You have sympathizers around the base, you know," The nurse spoke, her voice barely above a whisper, "I suspect it is because you kicked Kylo Ren, did you not?"

Gin glanced up at the woman from where she lay on her cot, a look of confusion settling onto her face. She blinked several times in disbelief, but nodded minutely in response.

"He is a very… Difficult man, as I'm _sure_ you've noticed," The stranger continued, choosing her words cautiously, "He rarely takes off his helmet, but we've all seen the bruise… He's been eating his meals in private." A small expression of mirth crept across the woman's lips. "People ridicule him in quiet when he is not around - Ren is aware of it, too."

Her miniscule look of humor was quickly replaced by grief as she finished wrapping Gin's wounds. She turned to leave the side of her cot, but not before sharing a few more words. "A million supporters are not worth the enemy you have gained," The nurse cautioned, her eyes heavy with an unfamiliar sort-of sorrow, "I'm sure your ribs will tell you this, but he wants you to suffer for what you've done to his reputation." There was another pause as she tried to collect her thoughts. "I… I can tell you are a good woman. You do not deserve this. I pray that peace finds you."

As she was turning to leave, Gin reached out for the woman's hand, barely able to touch it with even the tips of her fingers. The medic stopped anyways, glancing over her shoulder at the injured form of a woman once so loving, so strong, so courageous. The younger female struggled out just a few words, her voice small and scared, "He's going to kill me."

Tears pricked into the eyes of the elder, and she had to look away from her downtrodden patient. Her parting words rang with imminent mourning, "Do not be afraid that he will kill you. Be afraid that he will let you live."

It took Ginovae many, many hours to get to sleep after that unpleasant, but otherwise unthreatening encounter. However, she found that the waking was much worse in comparison to her latent insomnia - especially when she awoke with a clammy hand tightly pressed against her mouth. She jolted, her arms scrambling to make a grab at the arm that restrained her, but the straps on the cot halted her movements. Regardless of the futility, she swung her limbs wildly, hoping that the ruckus she caused would bring attention to her struggle. In hindsight, she didn't know who would save her when she was on her _opponent's_ base, but at the time, it made perfet sense.

"Godammit, Gino - I'm here to save you!" An urgent, hushed voice announced, causing Gin to freeze in her efforts to ward off the attacker.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the nighttime infirmary, a swell of hope built up within her. The outlines of a familiar face became clearer and clearer to her, and she choked back a sob of relief from behind the hand that was still clasped to her mouth.

The familiar figure removed their hand from over Gin's mouth, acting quickly to undo the restraints that bound her. Immediately after being released, the injured thief wrapped her arms securely around her savior, her chest heaving with tears one could only express after being liberated from something that was so near to killing them.

"Saera - is it really you?" She whimpered into the shoulder of the other female, hands desperate and clutching as if she were afraid that her friend would disappear.

The woman called Saera accepted Gin's embrace, her own touch much more gentle in comparison. She did not complain at the intensity, nor did she mock the desolation that her companion was displaying - she simply stayed quiet, her heart aching at the thought of what the poor girl must have been going through these past few weeks. If only they had gotten to her sooner. "It's me, honey," She responded, her voice soft and soothing, "I'm here. I'm here, and I'm not leaving you."

Another sob wracked through Ginovae, and her grasp became even tighter. She'd given up hope of being saved the moment she was captured. It was soul-crushingly astonishing to see the face of someone she trusted so well, someone she cared for so much. Her shaking hands reached out for Saera's face, gently smoothing the surface of her friend's dark skin.

The moment would not last, however - it simply _couldn't_ last. The pair were in far too much danger to keep so still for so long. Even in the dark, empty infirmary, they were likely seconds away from both being slaughtered - or worse.

Saera pulled away first, though it hurt her to see Gin's sniveling features. She wiped at the tears of her counterpart, and tried to get her to calm her nerves. "Hey, hey. It's alright. We're both getting out of here," She started slowly, pointedly, making sure she had the attention of the injured woman before her, "It's going to be dangerous, it's going to be stupid, and it's not going to make any sense. You _have_ to listen to me. I know you're hurt, and this isn't going to help you any, but I need you to be strong for just a little longer. Can you do that?"

Gin felt horribly useless and childish upon hearing the other female's coddling, but she knew this was probably the best way to reach her in this situation. Her headspace had been violated during her captivity, and she'd shattered her ideas of social norms as if it would help her cope. She looked Saera in the eye, nodding stiffly in response.

"Good - now I need you to get into this laundry cart."

So the wounded woman got into the laundry cart, covering herself with the - thankfully - clean uniforms of enemy staff. Her friend pushed the cart dutifully down the long, winding hallways of the base, her expression stoic and indifferent. She channeled the essence of her opponents, her actions calculated and composed to an almost terrifying point. Had Gin not been unable to see anything but _clothes,_ she would've thought Saera looked positively… Villainous - if a woman with a bunch of linens could be considered villainous by association alone. It was a damn good thing that she was such a good actress, however, or they would've been in an even bigger heap of trouble.

After what felt like hours upon hours of being rolled around in a big cart, Ginovae's broken ribs were starting to become a bother once again, only being exasperated by her strange position. She found her breathing was inhibited, both by the garments she lay beneath, and by the bruising around her thorax. The poor girl could hardly stand it by the time their forward momentum was coming to a stop.

Saera rushed to close the door behind her as she entered an even darker room than the one they were in beforehand, kicking at the laundry cart to let her friend know that the coast was clear. She watched Gin slowly crawl out of the carrier, her movements only further slowed by her injuries. Despite knowing how mistreated her friend had been in her imprisonment, she couldn't help but feel anxious at how painfully, awkwardly sedate her actions appeared to be. "Okay - to hell with your ribs, man! I just walked into a _transportation_ area with a load of _clean laundry_. We have _maybe_ two minutes before I get reported for suspicious activity - and you _know_ how these people are about those kinds of things," The healthier, more mobile female chastised, coming to the aid of the destitute woman who could barely get out of a _bathtub_ if her _life_ depended on it.

Ginovae just rolled her eyes at Saera's callous attitude. It was typical that her teasing start before they were even in the clear. Shows how little things changed while she was busy getting her ass kicked on a daily basis.

It slowly dawned on her, however, that they were in a large bay area full of inactive escape pods. Gin turned, dumbfounded, to her friend. "... How do you expect us to be able to _use_ one of these things without proper validation?" She questioned, her voice in a hiss.

"I _told_ you not to worry about it! I've got it covered," Saera assured, offering only a little bit of solace to the other woman's anxious thoughts, "We've got a man on the inside that's helping us get out of here."

Ginovae's thoughts immediately turned to the old woman who had been caring for her wounds only hours before this point, but brushed the thought away. She didn't seem like someone who was in the business of helping prisoners escape, but the universe was a large, strange place full of equally strange people. The gift horse wasn't even around to have its mouth looked at anyways, so it ultimately mattered very little, though she silently thanked whoever it was that got her a ticket to safety.

The sounds of rapidly approaching footsteps broke through the silence of the room, and the two women flinched in unison, both turning to look at the doorway. Saera left her friend to fend for herself momentarily while she pushed the laundry cart in front of the doorway, hoping beyond hope that it would at least buy them a moment or two in the long run. Her mouth went dry at the prospect of being killed - or worse, captured. All of a sudden, the able-bodied woman was full of doubts - numerous and unrelenting doubts. Would their ally come through with the plan? Would the plan fall through entirely? She worriedly glanced around the pods, waiting for one of them to open.

The sounds of voices just outside the door sent Gin into a fit of hysteria. She began to hyperventilate, thinking of the absolute, unending _torture_ she would be forced to endure. This was a mistake. Saera should've never come to save her. Now they would both be on the rack. She stared, wide-eyed, at the closed door behind them, the beeping sounds of the keypad on the doorframe resonating past the thin, paneled walls. Five short beeps followed by a horrifying, irritatingly-lengthy drone that signaled the key code had failed.

Five more beeps. One long drone.

Five more beeps. One long drone.

Five more beeps, five more beeps, five more beeps.

The stormtroopers seemed unable to get into the room with them. Whatever person was assisting their escape seemed to have thought ahead. Still, it was only a matter of moments before they found another way through that door.

It seemed that they didn't even have _that_ long.

A violent, alarmingly red blade pierced through the wall, slicing through the material like butter. The two women's hearts jumped straight into their throats, and Ginovae withheld a sob of terror. However, as soon as the lightsaber had broken through, an escape pod just adjacent to them opened up.

Saera wasted no time, foregoing the crutch-work she would've had to do for her small, injured friend by scooping her up into her arms, moving with haste into the pathetic excuse for a ship. She supposed it was really never meant for comfort, however. It was for getting away as _quickly as possible_ \- and that was what they really needed right now. Footsteps advanced towards them as fast as they could manage, but they weren't quick enough. Almost as soon as the hatch to the pod was closed, they were launched out of the enemy base without a single instance of warning.

The females fell against the side of the ship, hardly being prepared for such a high-turbulence takeoff. Saera was knocked unconscious entirely, smacking her head against the hard interior. Gin's fall was cushioned by her friend, whom had still been tightly attached to her side.

Ginovae snaked a weak arm around the other woman, tugging her upright from their position against the wall. She checked for vitality, but there was little else she knew to do but to make sure the insensate woman was still alive. While she was relieved that they were both animate, her own lungs felt near to collapse. She reasoned that over-exertion was more of a cause than actual, immediate danger was. Having the basics covered, her thoughts turned to other pressing matters. Momentarily, she worried that the First Order would attempt to fire on them.

In hindsight - if the Order wanted to shoot them out of the sky, they would've done it before their little escape pod had flown so far out of their range.

She opened a small compartment near the flooring, tucked away beneath one of the few seats in the ship. Inside, she found what looked like someone's pathetic, elementary idea of a first-aid kit. It didn't matter. If they needed a _real_ first-aid kit, they probably didn't have a chance of survival in the first place.

Gin had never been classically trained in medicine, but she figured that a dry-ice pack was better than a sharp stick in the eye. Unable to get Saera into one of the chairs, she simply sat with her friend on the cold ground, holding the pack against her bruising skull with the gentleness of the nurse who had cared for her aboard the enemy's base. She tried not to dwell on that, however. Whatever attachment to the old woman she'd necessitated while in capture was a flaw in the codes of the both of them. The nurse shouldn't have shown compassion, and Ginovae shouldn't have shown weakness.

They were pawns of the system. It was a shame they were destined to be adversaries.

The pod rocketed towards an unknown destination, likely pre-determined by triangulation and coordinates. She wondered, briefly, where they would be landing. It was likely not to be anywhere nice, but braving even the deepest pits of the darkest caverns would be better than waiting for Kylo Ren to drag her entrails out through her toes. Gin pondered a great many things in the quiet of their ship, holding Saera to her side with the grip of a scared, exhausted child.

She mused over her recent displays of vulnerability. She'd been so foolish and fragile these past weeks. How had she gone from a respectable, strong, amicable ally to a brittle, broken, selfish prisoner of war? What had snapped inside of her that turned her into such a bitter person? It wasn't that she didn't expect something like this to unfold from her attempts to save the young pillagers that she'd grown to care for so deeply. Ginovae wholeheartedly expected to face anguish and death when she pulled that little girl from the mud, and yet, she felt such betrayal that she'd gone through that at all.

It felt like the universe was punishing her for being a hero, for her good deeds. She would be afraid to show any bouts of courage for the rest of her life.

Despite her better judgement, the exhaustion caught up to her, and she soon found herself asleep next to her concussed partner. Neither of them were likely to survive much longer anyways.

She deserved a nap, if nothing else.

* * *

 _"Oh, that weight is lifting, lifting off me. It carries me out to the sea, and swallows me."_ \- The Cinematic Orchestra

* * *

_Had a little bit of trouble with this one, honestly! Sorry it's kinda boring. There a little bit of **plot** that I have to take care of before Kylo gets to come in and be a colossal dickhead to everyone again. In the next chapter we're gonna get lost, get drunk, throw a party, and find out what exactly those thieves have taken from our fair lady - I mean - fake sith lord. Any guesses? I'd love to hear what you guys think of Saera as well! a good one, you guys. Expect a new chapter later this week, if not earlier. - Marina_


	5. Rescue

_This chapter contains little to no spoilers for the Force Awakens._

* * *

By the time the pod began its descent, Saera had made a slow, awkward, _painful_ return to the land of consciousness. She could barely get her eyes to focus, showcasing an obvious injury to her cranium - likely a severe concussion. The two women, battered with their wounds, both laid on the cold, metalloid flooring, content to bask in the chill of the ground. They groaned in succession each time a single ounce of turbulence shook the vehicle, finding it exceedingly hard to get comfortable in the first place without the ship shaking every five minutes.

Gin rolled from her stomach onto her back, realizing the grave mistake she'd made when she decided comfort was more important than keeping weight off her ribs. She had always begrudged the fact that sleeping on her stomach was the only real way she could get a full night's rest, and this situation wasn't making her feel any better about herself. A sudden bout of quaking made her brace herself, gripping at any handhold she could find around the tiny compartment. With her free hand, she shook her friend awake.

"We should really get strapped in, you know," The shrimpy woman started, dragging herself up from the floor to get properly seated, "I think we're landing."

Saera grunted in discontent, but shakily followed Gin's lead, collapsing into one of the chairs with a great sigh. "Can we go back to cuddling after we land? I don't even know if I can walk out of here with my head swimming like this…" She complained, lolling her neck to the side, her eyes shut tight against the fluorescent lighting of the pod.

Ginovae snickered weakly, resting her head back as well, "We can cuddle all you want after we get someone to make sure your brain isn't gonna come oozing out of your ears."

"It's not like anyone bothered to check _your_ concussion when you were dealing with baddies - and _you_ turned out alright!" Saera countered in exasperation.

"I didn't turn out alright _at all_ , man!" Gin spat back, a small hint of mirth underneath her voice, "I'm gonna have PTSD about those horrible meals they made me eat. The First Order knows _nothing_ about the culinary arts!" Leave it to the two of them to make light of traumatic experiences. She'd have PTSD, that's for sure - but it wouldn't be about such a trivial thing as bad food. Not to mention - she was still a little worried about her _own_ head injury.

The more recently concussed woman bit her tongue, deciding it was best not to continue the subject. She'd heard plenty from her friend about her time with Order during their time in the escape pod, and even in jest, it probably wasn't a good idea to drudge up any bad memories until the situation was completely resolved. When they were both safe with the rest of the thieves, maybe they could talk more about her capture. Until then - Saera would keep her mouth shut. "Don't worry about it - when we get back home, we'll have the best damned feast you've ever seen! I'll see to it personally," She declared, trying to put some enthusiasm into her words, despite how absolutely awful she was feeling.

"So long as it's not your cooking, I'm okay with that."

"Don't be rude, Gino."

The landing was _almost_ entirely smooth, save for the fact that whatever planet they'd landed on seemed to lack _any_ level ground. Their ship lurched - and ultimately rolled down a long incline - due to the sprawling hills of the meadow-laden terrain. Gin nearly puked on Saera as they clambered out of the wreckage, each using the other as a crutch of some sort. It took them twenty minutes to get even a few meters away from the pod, being that the motion-sick woman was primarily concerned with their landing point being tracked, rather than finding a safe place to rest. She desperately wanted to trash the rest of the vehicle, breaking it into tiny pieces so the First Order wouldn't find them.

Saera eventually convinced her that it didn't matter in the first place - from where they'd launched, all of the pods had a preset destination. Ginovae knew that, of course, but it didn't mean she wasn't going to vehemently try to cover their tracks.

Neither of them were strong enough to hurt even the tiniest of insects at this point, let alone beat the functionality out of a machine, so the two salvaged what they could from the first aid kit, and left the wreckage with a load of paranoia on their shoulders.

The walk to civilization was long and grueling. They leaned heavily on each other, hoping that the power of two crippled people working in unison was more potent than one working alone. It occurred to Gino, after a while, that Saera made for a very poor crutch, being that she herself was so much shorter than her friend. In the reverse situation, Saera was feeling that Gino made for a better footstool.

It was very hard to satisfy either of them, in hindsight.

Saera nearly broke her shoulder when she came crashing through the door of the local tavern, completely abandoning her position as an ineffective cane. She made a mad dash for the bar, her hands stretched out in yearning. "Please, _God_ , give me some water. _Please_!" The ailing woman pleaded, her head so cloudy that she couldn't even made direct eye-contact with the woman - or what _seemed_ to be a woman - at the counter.

The server looked at her with quiet disdain, but she poured a small glass of water regardless of her misgivings. She did not wait for Saera to accept the drink, simply walking away to attend to other customers - ones who would actually _pay_.

Meanwhile, Gin had plopped herself down on an uncomfortable stone bench, trying vainly to regulate her breathing. She placed a hand over her abdomen, feeling her lungs expand and contract at a weak, slow pace. Her fingers touched lightly over her ribs that were broken hardly a day before, and prayed silently that she could make it to safety before it became an unavoidable issue.

Trying to distract herself from the stinging pain in her thorax, she casted her gaze back towards the bar that her friend had just disappeared into, wondering how _goddamned long it took to get some water_. Her stomach twisted with a different sort-of pain than she had gotten used to over the past hours, drawing her attention away from Saera once again. It was an anxious feeling - one of those ones where it feels like something bad is _going_ to happen in the _near_ future - and it crept up from her gut and along her spine, shivering sickly behind beet-red ears. Gin resisted the sudden urge to throw up, moving as swiftly as she could manage to follow after her friend, hoping to find safety in numbers.

However, she had no real need to expend such effort, because the aforementioned companion came trailing out of the bar with a sack of goods in tow almost as soon as she stood up from the bench.

Saera cast a toothy grin at the disgruntled brunette, whom was rubbing absently at her sides. She got only a scowl in return, something she wasn't surprised to see. Gino had never been one to celebrate until the storm had fully passed, rather than when the flooding receded. It probably wasn't a good thing, then, that she'd bought two bottles of liquor to share with the newly released pirate. She made a pointed attempt to keep the bag of supplies from her friend's sight when she handed her the water she begrudgingly purchased. Man cannot live on alcohol alone, she reasoned.

"Took you long enough, moron," Gin grumbled unhappily, collapsing back onto her seat with the lifelessness of a ragdoll, still careful not to agitate her injuries.

"Oh, buzz off," The opposing woman retorted, seating herself on the opposite side of the bench, "If you want, next time _I_ will be the one to get my ribs broken, and then _you_ can go buy the drinks." She heard no scathing replies, however - only the over-indulgent sounds of sloshing water as it drained from its bottle at near-hyperspeed. "You're going to get sick now! You should've drunk that slower."

"Whatever, mom," Ginovae spat back, making a grab for the bag Saera had placed on the ground beside her. It was snatched out of reach when her fingers were just brushing the burlap material, and she deepened her scowl at the other female. "... Excuse me?"

"Hey - it's _my_ money! It's _my_ bag! If you want more water, just ask for it," Saera drawled, getting into a one-sided tug-of-war with the shrimpy, more critically wounded woman. Gin wasn't one to be trifled with, however, and while her pulling was weak, her grip was mighty. She ultimately was forced to hand over the bag in defeat. If she had tugged any harder, her friend would've gotten hurt… Again.

"... Booze? Really?"

"It's _my_ money, Gino- _lame_ ," She repeated childishly, taking back her purchases with a huff after her friend acquired a second water bottle, "You're lucky I even came to rescue you - let alone spend my cash!"

Gin knew it was in jest, and simply elected to - once again - ignore the words Saera was spouting, swallowing down her drink with the gusto of a thirsting, feral beast. It was sloppy, it was inelegant, and she got quite a bit of it down her shirt. She didn't care. The planet they'd landed on was too hot anyways.

The pair traipsed away from the tavern after another several minutes of resting, beginning their search for a place to sleep for the night. Neither of them were in any condition to walk far, but they figured that staying too close to the township was dangerous. Well - at least, that's what Ginovae thought. Saera wanted to stay at the local inn, where there were witnesses and possible allies. Whatever her logic may have been, she couldn't argue with the small, grouchy woman who hissed like the devil was scratching at her trachea.

It was admirable, if not frustrating. She was glad that Gin was a normally happy, amicable person, or their friendship would've never taken root in the first place. Her heart ached more every time she saw her friend flinch at the sounds around them or wince at the pain burning beneath her skin. She'd only taken a few weeks to save her. Just a few weeks. Just a few weeks. How much damage could the First Order do in that timeframe? Saera didn't have to ask herself that. Everyone in the galaxy had seen it in some capacity or another.

They settled down in the forest, deep enough to avoid being spotted, but close enough to civilization that they could come and go as they pleased. It wasn't ideal, however. The women neglected to light any fires, despite the chill of the nighttime. They worried that the smoke would give away their location, and there was only _one_ ship they would ever want to signal. Sheets of dry leaves and grasses were laid down on the dirt, and they huddled closely together as they slept, hoping beyond hope that they wouldn't simply die in the night. The thermal blanket that had come with the escape pod was hardly big enough for the two of them, though they shared it with one another to the best of their abilities.

And, for the first time in a long time, they slept soundly.

Gin was blessed with the absence of whirring machinery, sleeping blissfully to the sound of the bullfrogs in the distance. Saera was blessed with the presence of her best friend, whom she had toiled endlessly to recover. The only thing that would've made the night better was if they were home again. … That, and if it was safe to start their celebratory drinking.

The two ate in comfortable silence to the sound of the morning cicadas, each munching on the nondescript rations that had been purchased the day before. Neither woman was particularly enjoying the meal, but Gin ate with much more gusto - content to be eating anything other than First Order prison food. She tried not to be ungrateful, but the seemingly fargone tastes of so many days past itched at the back of her throat, making her yearn even stronger for the dishes back home.

Saera pretended not to notice when voluminous, silent tears trekked their way down her disparaging friend's cheeks. She pretended not to notice when she started dry-heaving into a patch of nearby grass. She pretended not to notice when Gin returned to where she had been sitting before, her limbs shaking with the force of storms.

Their silence had become more depressing and less comfortable. The taller of the two women was still eating, while the other was rapidly dissociating away from the situation at hand. Ginovae had been saved, but she still felt so, _so_ far away.

Only a few weeks. It had only been a few weeks.

A few weeks in which she'd seen countless dead children, dead peers, dead friends. A few weeks in which she'd tried vainly to end the wretched husk that her life had become. A few weeks in which she'd been physically, mentally, and socially violated - only the tiniest of scraps of normalcy left to settle against her dry skin. A few weeks in which she'd been beaten, tortured, and nearly killed, only to have the merciful solace of death be stripped from her fingers.

Only a few weeks. _Only a few weeks_.

Gin's lips parted, breath creeping out in loud, though shallow, huffs. She stumbled over words that she wanted to say, words she _needed_ to get off of her chest, and Saera waited, knowingly, patiently, for her to speak.

"Have you ever heard of a man called Kylo Ren?"

The oxygen around them became stiff at the mention of the masked figure's name, both of the women taking long, slow scans of the area around them as if waiting for demise to come swooping out of the trees. Ginovae swallowed thickly, fidgeting with her fingers as she waited for her companion's reply.

"... Kyro Len?" Saera asked, her voice monotonous with disbelief, "What kind of name is that?"

"It's _Kylo Ren_. I thought the same thing when they told me his name," Gin corrected, running her hands along the sides of her head, trying to soothe her frayed nerves, "... He was the one who kicked the shit out of me."

"This Kylie Runner sounds like a swell guy, if you ask me. Sometimes I want to kick the shit out of you too," The opposing female remarked, still picking idly at her meal, "What about him? His name isn't really ringing any bells."

Gin ignored her friend's jest, too busy mulling over her own thoughts to enjoy the humor that Saera so often displayed at the most of inappropriate of times. "He… He said that we stole something from him," She started, speaking slowly and tactfully, as if scared that speaking of Kylo would somehow draw him closer to her, "He… Uh… _Read_ my mind, and said that I hadn't seen what he needed…"

"He… _Read_ your mind?"

" _Yeah_. He fuckin' _read my mind_. I don't know what you want me to tell you," Ginovae spat, leaning forward to better exercise her suddenly vivacious attitude, "He had a _light-saber_! That guy almost took my goddamned head off - several times!"

Saera blinked slowly, hardly believing what the crazed lady in front of her was rambling on about. "... You know the jedi… Are, like, _super dead_ , right?" They'd been told about those old, scraggly force-wielders a countless number of times from a countless number of people. With the traveling and scouring their little tribe of pirates did, they were bound to catch wind of the legends, stories, and history that permeated every corner of the universe. The jedi were no different. While tales of fancy, most of the thieves figured that if _that_ many people believed in them, then they must have _some_ sort-of basis in reality.

Gin, however, didn't need stories to have proof. She'd seen it firsthand, and it made her nearly ecstatic to know that so much power wasn't held in many hands - if anyone else besides Kylo Ren had it. "You wanna go back and find out? You saw the saber! He sliced through the door when we were trying to get into the escape pods!"

"That wasn't… That wasn't a light-saber… That was a pretty, fun, deadly fire-beam."

"Yeah. A light-saber," The exasperated woman affirmed, her hands held out in front of her with hardly concealed patronization.

"... Whatever. I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt, Gino - because I trust you, and I know how screwed up these past weeks have been…" Saera conceded, setting down her now-empty portion container on the dirt beneath them, "Did this grumpy ninja tell you what we stole from him? I haven't seen anything of import at the base - at least, not lately…"

Ginovae shook her head, neck stiff and shoulders raised, before lolling her skull down to cradle it in her hands. She didn't bother replying. The conversation wasn't going to go anywhere if neither of them knew any more than the other. Silence fell between them once again, this time much more tense than the previous moments before.

It was broken, however, by the heavy, familiar whirring of vehicles overhead.

Saera was the first to get to her feet, keenly peering skywards, trying in vain to see past the leaves. She cursed loudly, breaking into a run.

"What is it?" Gin called after her, scrambling to keep up with her friend of much more healthy composition, "Is it the Order? We need to hide! What the hell are you doing?"

"Get the flares, Gino," Saera ordered, "Get them out - hurry!"

The confused female obliged, annoyed at her friend's inability to answer any of her questions. They ran, they stumbled, and crashed their way through the thicket, finally out of the dense forest.

"Would you _tell_ me what's going on? Why do we need flares? Don't alert anyone to our location, you psychopath!" Ginovae had the flare gun immediately ripped from her hand as Saera pointed it urgently towards the clouds. Before she could even register what was happening, the gun had been fired, a splash of fiery color exploding overhead.

And ever-so slowly, ever-so painfully, out of the dense condensation, came the hull of a ship that she thought she would never see again.

And they were safe.

For a while, anyways.

* * *

" _The past few months were pretty rough, a couple of times wished we both were dead. I never cried like that before, I thought my eyes would pop out of my head. I'm just preparing for nightmares, years and years, I do suppose. Nothing feels alright now - the length of my hair, or the fit of my clothes. Crying like a baby solved nothing._ " - The Front Bottoms

* * *

  _Hi there, friends! How you? It's been a little while. Sorry about that. Back at school, had some shitty family stuff going on, da da da da da... Hope this chapter was at least funny, if not kinda boring. Can't have things moving too fast, ya know? Kylo will... Probably be back next chapter, don't you fret. I suppose I lied in the last one, though. There was no drinking. And we don't know what they stole... Oops. Sorry. Next time. Promise._ \- Marina


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